The Time Between
by Thuggery
Summary: During a lull in the fighting, two snipers learn of a price to be paid. One-shot


Stalingrad, USSR

20 September 1942

The 13th Guards Rifle Division's relief couldn't have come soon enough. What had been a ten thousand man unit had been whittled down to two battalions. Bone-tired, the men needed time to rest, rearm, and recuperate from their losses. Fresh reinforcements were arriving every hour from across the Volga by the boatload. Conscripts, much like the men they were reinforcing. Commissars and other political officers offered strong words and slogans to keep them in line, but whenever that failed, they also offered summary executions for cowardice. So it was forward into the city for them.

They marched into the encampment put up in a bombed-out tractor factory, their fatigues still relatively clean and still showing its creases in comparison with the combat veterans' damp and soiled clothing. Each of the reinforcing soldiers was aware of the eyes watching them as they marched. Tired eyes, drained of life. The veterans had seen enough to last them a lifetime. And yet they were still there. They had to be there for a reason. Several fires had been started to heat food and cold hands.

Junior Sergeant Alexei Ivanovich Voronin had been in the city for only three days, and he had already begun to lose track of time. Duty called at strange hours, his first night's uneasy sleep interrupted when his platoon was needed to flank a German machine gun nest for a raid. Blinking sleep out of his eyes, he and his squad had to trudge through a sticky mud of water, dirt, and human feces in order to get to the rear of the position. He had shot a man maybe younger than he was. There was a certain intimacy with seeing a man's head explode under your cross-hairs. He could still see the momentary expression of shock that had disappeared when his Mosin-Nagant's bullet removed the back of his target's head.

He had lost track of how many times he had been forced to kill. But he knew there was one certain way to know. His father and grandfather had taught him well. They taught him what a good man was supposed to do. They taught him to read. They had taught him how to hunt. How to not waste a single shot. He knew that if he counted how many clips he had left, he would know how many men he had killed. How many families he had broken. He wouldn't. He couldn't.

So there he was, squatting over the small fire to warm his hands. His rifle was slung over his back, its scope still an unusual additional weight. It was strange to kill, he decided. Just a second for your finger to apply enough pressure to pull the trigger. Then to see a man die. Was that all it took? A few pounds of force to end a life? Was that what a human life was equal to?

Beside him, the survivors of the most recent raid sat around the fire with a can of borscht opened up and slowly heating over the meager flame. Fourteen had gone out into the city, but only five returned. Private Vasili Ivanovich Koslov was thankful to be one of them. He'd been in the city for nearly a month. Attrition made promotion a tricky thing. Yes, if your sergeant suddenly developed a case of leaden stomach thanks to an MG42, you were probably the sergeant now. But that hadn't accounted for the fact that you were probably right behind him, and that German bullets tended to overpenetrate. He'd stay a private, thank you. Better to serve his nation, and to avenge his family.

The flicker of the flames and the screams of those trapped inside the house seemed to be permanently seared into his memory, not unlike the scars that ran across his body. 'Souvenirs' from German artillery. They should have listened more closely to the news from the front. They should have moved before the front came so close. But that was immaterial now. So long as he remembered his brothers and sisters, his mother and father, his grandparents, they would never be dead. And so long as he continued to fight, perhaps their deaths might be set right some day. For now he was satisfied with bringing the fight to the fascists.

"How long before we can eat, huh?" Private Konstatin Petrov asked, his Siberian accent grating to Alexei's ears. "Look at those poor sons of bitches," he added, waving his rifle's partially-disassembled bolt at their reinforcements.

"Welcome to Hell!" Private Ivan Lukin added, grinning despite the bandages that were wrapped around the phosphorus burn across half of his face. The wound was almost guaranteed to have been already infected, black-green fluid leaching through the dirty gauze. Even though he was a year older than Vasili, he still acted more like a teenager eager to fight. It was probably his way of staying sane.

Private Oleg Kosygin kept quiet, slowly stirring the can of borscht. He had been in the city likely since the beginning. No effort was wasted on words with him. But his rifle sported clear tally marks scratched onto both sides. Nobody doubted that he had killed that many Germans. Even losing half of his left hand had barely stopped him.

Just as the officers started to divvy up the reinforcements, it had started to rain. A drizzle at first, the men still quickly cleaned and reassembled their rifles before the downpour came. The fires were hurriedly guarded to keep the water away. The dust that covered the factory floor was quickly churned into slurry by the rain, clinging to the men's boots and clothing.

It seemed like there was no end to the stream of reinforcements. The conscripts marched through the rain and into the relative shelter under the factory's holed roof. Some wore fresh overcoats that repelled water nicely, someone 'used' jackets that still bore the bloodstains of the previous owner and soaked up the water like a sponge. Watching them, Vasili self-consciously picked at his own moth-eaten jacket that he had taken out of an abandoned house. He'd have to see about getting something new.

Alexei quietly got to his feet and walked out under one of the holes in the roof and raised his face to the heavens. The rain was clean, cold, and it came down hard. He could feel the grime that caked his face being washed away by the downpour. Raising his hands, he wiped them clean after they were subjected to the rain was well. Running his fingers through his short hair, he opened his eyes to look at the gun metal gray clouds. It felt like he could take to the skies and fly away from all of this madness even with the rain. He could almost feel the wind against his face.

"Junior Sergeant," a voice said. "Voronin!"

If only he could fly. Blinking the water out of his eyes, he turned toward the source. Lieutenant Nikolai Kalinin, one of the longest-surviving junior officers of the battalion. Rumors were that he had repeatedly turned down promotions to remain on the line with his men. Alexei and Vasili were conflicted about that. He was a good officer, an excellent commander. They needed more men like him on the front line. But at the same time, both wanted to see their commander safe behind the walls of headquarters where bullets and shells could not reach him.

"Sir," Alexei said with a nod as Vasili walked up next to him. "Replacements?"

"Privates Ivanov, Nikitin, Sabgaida, Brezhov, Semenov, Demchenko, Bulganin, Voronov, and Sokolov," Kalinin said, a thumb jabbing at the line of fresh soldiers, two of them carrying crates of much-needed ammunition. "You boys fed?"

"Just about, sir," Vasili said. "Oleg's cooking right now. Join us for some?"

"Would if I could," Kalinin said with a weary smile. "Command wants these guys squared away before I get a few reams of paper to sign."

"We could always shoot them," Alexei said, deadpan. "Politically unreliable and all that."

Their lieutenant laughed and shook his head. "But then I'd have to take over, and you know I don't want a staff job." He smiled and shook his head again. "Okay, see that your new squad gets fed. There's probably going to be a patrol soon enough."

Both men groaned inwardly but nodded. Alexei gestured for the new meat to join the circle around the fire. Nine new names to remember, and nine new names to eventually forget.

"Hey, guys."

Alexei saw Vasili stiffen at the sound of the voice. He knew he probably had the same reaction. There was only one Ukrainian who sounded so calm no matter the situation. The Fatherless Reaper.

"Dmitri!" Alexei managed with a forced smile. "How are you today?"

Private Dmitri Petrenko was one of the long-time veterans like Kosygin. Nobody knew his full name, who his father had been. But he was possibly one of the most lethal snipers to stalk the ruins of Stalingrad. There were some soldiers that others considered to be heartless. Dmitri made those men look like humanitarians with his actions. Prisoners that he and his men had taken were inevitably shot while attempting to escape. Except that "shot while attempting to escape" generally didn't mean neat close-range pistol shots to the back of their skulls. Everyone had heard of his reputation.

The Fatherless Reaper only smiled and held out a canvas bag. "Got some food."

"Well," Kalinin said with a nervous laugh as he quickly backed away. "I'll leave you three snipers to it."

Dmitri nodded and walked back to the fire with the newcomers. Ivan had somehow persuaded Oleg to start ladling out the soup. Alexei and Vasili watched as the other sniper started pulling cans and packages that were clearly marked in German. So the Reaper had been visiting their camps. That meant that there was probably a platoon or more less in the city. They could admire that.

But the Reaper probably didn't even care about that. There were rumors that he _liked_ to kill. More so than what was required, at least. Soldiers shot to defend themselves, to defend their nation. He shot because he _liked_ it. Vasili had seen his handiwork before. The Reaper didn't attack unless there were many victims. And you could always tell where he'd gone to work, they said. There was always at least one body with two holes, one wounding and one kill shot. He played with his targets, maiming one so the others would try to save him, then killing the unfortunate's rescuers before euthanizing the wounded one at the end. It almost made Vasili feel sympathetic toward his victims.

Before the two snipers could do anything else, Dmitri had already seated himself by the fire with the others. Kosygin looked as uncomfortable as they felt, wary around the obvious predator. Petrov and Lukin showed no visible reaction, possibly because they didn't care. The fresh meat hadn't been around long enough to realize what kind of a man they were sitting next to. They watched him unsling his rifle, an unwieldy Simonov anti-tank rifle with what looked like a German scope attached to the top of the receiver. It would be heavy, a weapon originally designed to penetrate tank armor would have to be to handle the cartridge. But against men, it would do much worse.

"So, take anyone particularly impressive recently?" Dmitri asked, looking at the two snipers. "Staff officers? Adolf himself?"

"Nothing so close," Vasili said awkwardly after a moment. "There were a few officers, but we're not a sniper troop."

"Of course not," Dmitri said, nodding. "My offer still stands, though."

He'd talked them before about it a day ago, offering them a spot in a headhunter sniper unit he had permission to put together. Neither of them wanted to take part in the sort of thing tactics the Reaper engaged in. And they would do that much more while on the open battlefield instead of skulking in the shadows. Although Alexei still felt honored by the fact that he'd been noticed and complimented by one of Stalingrad's best.

"Thank you, but no thank you, comrade," Vasili said. "How're your hands?"

Dmitri had been burned several days ago when the Germans had tried to burn him out of a bar, but he'd evidently taken his pound of flesh in return. He shrugged.

"Have been better. Got some air and some dressings on it. Shooting the fucker who did it helped a bit, too."

"So how about you, then?" Alexei asked. "Take anyone?"

"Three officers today," Dmitri said, a smile coming easily to his face as he raised three bandaged fingers. "Strange to see them driving about in an open-top staff car. Especially in these sorts of conditions. Seemed like a waste not to do them all." He patted his rifle. "One through the engine block to stop the car. One to take the driver. Should've seen it, something of an achievement if I may say so myself. _Pssssssh_," he made an explosion gesture with his hands. "Head and arms came off when I got him in the upper chest." He tapped a point just under his collarbone.

"Nice," Vasili said uneasily after a moment. "And the others?"

"Well, the general behind him had his guts looped out," Dmitri continued. "I put a second round through his Iron Cross. Came apart nice and easy, head falling a few meters away. The two captains were easy, too." He smiled broadly, looking unnervingly young. "The first one had no idea what was going on. No head for it. Not anymore anyway!" He laughed heartily, Alexei and Vasili nervously joining in a second later. "The other guy managed to get his door open. Caught him just as he was trying to get off the street. Took his leg off." He made a dismissive wave. "Easy. One clip of five, nothing wasted."

"Well, that's uh," Vasili started, trailing off and glancing at Alexei to see if he would intervene. "That's, uh, good."

"Got any pointers?" Alexei added. "Something from the professional?"

Smiling, Dmitri tossed both of them a can each of what might have been a Wehrmacht meat ration based on its labeling. "Sure, sit down."

The two snipers sat, Alexei paying particular attention as he tried to open the can with his knife. He'd take his lessons wherever he could.

"The most important thing about a sniper is not his rifle, nor his scope," Dmitri said. He tapped his temple. "It's his mind. A sniper can have the best German-made rifle with the finest Swiss scope, but all of that means shit if you can't cut it as a sniper." He pulled a clip of ammunition for his rifle out and started to clean each individual round as he talked. "Patience and determination have determined more duels than anything else. Your enemy needs only to succeed once, but you must replicate your success many times if you want to live.

"But therein lies the problem. How do you continue to replicate your success?" The Reaper smiled, a thin smile without even a hint of emotion behind it. "You must grow numb. Only then can you survive, _thrive_. You must disconnect yourself from the world, where you can observe but not act." Taking Alexei's can, he pried it open easily and handed it back. "Make your shots count. When you raise your rifle to your eye, your rifle will fire. It must fire. It must taste death. But you cannot." He shook his head before staring straight at the two men. "It will cloud your mind, each death. You will think about what that man might have been if you hadn't killed him…"

He trailed off for a second, his eyes growing cold and empty. Vasili could barely repress his shudder. What sort of man was this? What had he done?

"But that is why you must be numb," Dmitri said, his smile broadening. "If you let the death affect you, you are letting death affect your aim. Besides, they are fascists. Scum. Killing them is no sin. It is a mercy for the mindless herds that Hitler throws at us. Cattle with swastikas and helmets. They deserve it. They _need_ it." He loaded the fresh clip into his Simonov's open magazine. The bolt snapped into place with a startlingly loud _clack_. "You know, my little brother Yuri's birthday is almost here," he said, brightening suddenly. "Any idea what I should send home? Maybe one of their medals?"

"Sounds good," Vasili managed.

"Maybe one of their helmets?" Alexei offered.

Dmitri laughed and clapped his hand on Alexei's shoulder as he got up. "Maybe if I could find one after I'm done! I need to get going! The scum won't kill themselves!"

"Best of luck, then," Vasili said. "I'm hoping to see you again soon."

He wasn't. Neither Vasili nor Alexei wanted to see that sniper again. Was this what it meant to devote themselves fully to the fight? They watched the long heavy barrel of the anti-tank rifle weave through the crowds as Dmitri walked away. He was a monster, but maybe a monster was what it took to win a war.

They sat there, watching the men eat. Half an hour later, they were on the lines again.


End file.
